


After All That

by allofthismatters



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofthismatters/pseuds/allofthismatters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killian has been taking care of Emma after the darkness is gone from her; but she notices that it's taking a toll on him as well. Drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After All That

**Author's Note:**

> a/n:I was thinking about Killian taking care of Emma after she’s back to herself and the effect that would have on him, and then this just pretty much popped out of my head in the last hour, sooo…enjoy?

-

It’s been three weeks and a day since she’d come back to him, and she’s never felt more treasured in her life. From the moment her family found her, to the moment the last of the darkness had been leached from her, Killian had been there, all of his strength laid bare for her use.

And for once in her life, she’d taken it.

He’d pulled her into his arms whenever she began to come apart. Calmed her when she was frightened. Held his steadfast belief in her goodness, holding her hand and coaxing her back from the remnants of darkness, fighting for her soul tooth and nail as always.

She had certainly said some horrible things to him in the midst of the whole ordeal, mocking his devotion to her and stabbing at him with parts of his life that she knew would hurt the most. The memories of her cruelty and icy indifference toward him are enough to sicken her with shame. 

And even after all that, he’d tended to her. Bandaged her cuts, stood at the bathroom sink helping her clean her hands when the nightmares made her draw blood, made sure she always had hearty meals to gain back the weight she’d lost in that black abyss, and laid her on her stomach to massage the tension from her shoulders. 

None of it is lost on her. He’s carried her through the past month in every way that one person can carry another.

But Killian is exhausted. The more she recovers, the more she knows it. She’s watched him run himself into the ground to ensure her wellbeing. He has risen with her every time she’s woken clutching her bedsheets or her own hair—or sometimes him—and wrestled her back to consciousness. He has sat up with her, brought her water or cocoa or his rum, dried her tears with his fingertips, and soothed her back to sleep, only falling back into his own light, hesitant sleep long after her. He’s slept wherever she needs him; in her bed, on the couch of the loft, or even on the floor if he was being particularly stubborn.

She doesn’t know when to mention it. So they don’t even talk about it. An unreasonable part of her is furious with herself for only noticing now, however unwell she’s been the past few weeks.

But one night, she’s coming out of the shower, drying her hair with a towel, and catches him off guard. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, head hung low, still as a rock. He’s not relaxed. She can’t even see his face, but she knows his body, and she can practically feel the tension and fatigue coming off him in waves. He looks very far away, the trauma of the past few months glazing over his eyes.

And the whole thing terrifies her. Suddenly, the need to take care of him is an urgent thing, jarring her as badly as if she’d just found him bleeding on the floor. The towel falls haphazardly into an open drawer.

“Killian-”

It takes him a long, long moment to respond, so different from the past days where the sound of his name from her lips meant his undivided attention in an instant. He eventually looks up at her, his eyes unbearably tired and she’s by his side in an instant, taking his face in her hands like she’s seen a ghost, and then drawing him into her neck. He feels tense in her grip, like he doesn’t feel right relinquishing his strength, but she urges him further onto the bed and holds him, the both of them trembling fiercely.

Little by little, he calms. She kisses his thick mess of hair every few moments, drawing gentle fingernails over his scalp and at the base of his neck. Her palm and the back of her hand sooth his cheeks, his shoulders, behind his ears, down his back. The rhythm of her wet hair dripping on his forehead is oddly reassuring, and his muscles relax until she feels a final heave of breath followed by the comforting weight of him in her lap.

He starts shaking, and that’s when she knows he’s crying. The comforting strokes of her hands become frantic, her kisses blending into one because she can’t bear to let her lips leave his skin for a moment. She shifts him so that his face is buried between her breasts, and she tries to breathe steadily for him.

To her relief, it’s just a brief fit of tears, and then it’s over. She exhales deeply with him, and smiles at a brief peck of his lips on her sternum.

“I’m sorry, love.”

“Don’t,” she says fiercely.

Killian draws himself back so he’s kneeling on the bed and Emma joins him, pressing her forehead to his. It’s all been too much—far too much for anyone to endure alone, and she knows that he did just that for ages.

They aren’t alone now, though. Day after day, he’s been holding her up, and she knows deep in her gut, with a ferocity she’s never felt before, that she’d do the same for him. 

For weeks, she’s spent her days terrified that his care was just a brief reprieve; that the darkness had been inevitable, just a part of her that had been bound to come out and ruin it all eventually. Every moment, awake or asleep, was haunted by the tired old belief that she was no good, that love wasn’t in her nature.

But maybe she was wrong.

Killian finally meets her eyes, with no characteristic attempt at humor or evasion, and he smiles through his fatigue, lets her look at him, and that’s when she finally, finally knows.

Years ago now, she had begun to see that Love was strength.

But with the two of them kneeling there, defiantly drawing stability and peace and hope from one another, she knows that she never believed it until now.


End file.
